Katie Rouse Writes

writing & marketing

tears & the faithfulness of God.

Emotions, Fear, Story, the shattering / by

It’s interesting to me that God gave our eyes room to fill with tears. They so quickly pool around our retinas, and things get blurry. Then they either fall out and fill again or they dissipate as quietly as they came. It’s a beautiful exchange, to fill and to empty, fill and empty, again and again. And not just in sorrow, but in joy. in laughter. in pain. in confusion. in frustration. and everything in between those crevices of emotions that we can put names to and file away like books.
This week has been a week full of tears. Not because it’s been a sad week. But it’s been a full week, and so my eyes have been full. After one morning, I wrote:

This morning, I was on my floor, a puddle of tears from a melodramatic heart that couldn’t feel anything but His pounding, faithful fist at the door. “Let. Me. In.” Through others, through His word, through everything, He was coming, running, pursuing me. My anxiety and self-consciousness over the past few days had barred the door from His intimate touch. Even through that, He was speaking. He was whispering through the keyhole and dropping love letters at my feet. Relentless. 

The next morning, again:

I weep over His faithfulness for the second morning in a row, and as I workout on our little elliptical for the third morning in a row, and, now, as I write a few words about this day, even as it is just beginning, for the thirtieth day in a row, or so. These are little victories, setting up their banners in and around my soul—these are the victorious places. these are the places to return to when things get hard. these are the stones of remembrance setting up their homes in places where I once questioned His presence. these are His works. 

The next morning, again, this time through a message to a friend:

Thank you for your sweet and encouraging words this morning. They are perfect and brought tears to my eyes! Which just makes His faithfulness SO tangible. Praise Him!

And that phrase stuck with me. The tears make His faithfulness tangible. As someone who thinks abstractly a solid 90% of the time, and struggles to make any abstract idea tangible in my speaking or writing, the beauty that God was revealing to me through this small reality stopped me in my tracks (and it stopped my tears in their flow).
These tears this week have been heavy, weighty drops over my heart, cleansing it of pride and selfishness, running over the insecurity and fear that I think gives my identity in Christ more meaning. (It doesn’t). They have spilled out not of my reaction or response to Him, but simply, somehow, they’ve flown from His faithfulness to me: To speak. to move. to act. to love. to delight. to sing. to bring others alongside me in the fight. to bring me into the midst of others’ fights. to let me hold up arms with others holding mine. holding theirs, holding mine—a sweet exchange. Just like those tears. Filling and emptying. Filling and emptying. 

If I could say one thing to you, it’s this: Let the tears flow. Don’t blink them back or stop them. Just cry. Let His faithfulness become more real to you than the circumstances (good or bad) that make the tears come in the first place. He is with you, always. And He’s weeping, too.

About Katie Rouse

Katie Rouse (she/her) is a marketing manager and freelance writer. She mostly posts on Instagram, @katie.rose.rouse, writing on faith, doubt, and deconstruction, as well as sharing poetry. She loves sending out weekly poems to email subscribers, occasionally writing blog posts at katierousewrites.com. Find her published or upcoming writing with Missive Mag, hyssop + laurel, and The Unmooring. She published her first book of poetry, Psalms of Deconstruction, in Fall 2021, and is working on her first memoir, which will recount her journey of deconstructing her faith while serving as a missionary in India.